1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a thickening agent for treating a textile material, and more particularly, to a thickening agent for treating a textile material comprising water-soluble hemicellulose as its active ingredient.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, thickening agents for treating a textile material may include a size for working, a thickening agent for printing and a thickening agent for finishing. Starch-based thickening agents, such as corn starch, as well as PVA, CMC and sodium alginate, have been commonly used for the warping size. The thickening agent for printing is blended with various types of dyes and assistants for printing patterns and designs on textiles. Although a starch-based thickening agent, modified starch, CMC, sodium alginate and gua gum are commonly used for this thickening agent for printing, in addition to the agent itself being required to have permeability, washability, viscosity stability and coating strength, it is also required to provide adequate dyeing properties, clarity, dying uniformity and sharpness to the dyed material.
In addition, the thickening agent for finishing is used for the purpose of increasing the product value of textiles. Finishing includes stain-preventing finishing, waterproofing finishing and flame retardant finishing and so forth, and a starch-based thickening agent, modified starch, CMC, PVA, sodium alginate and so on are commonly used for this type of thickening agent as well.
As can be understood from the above, the types of thickening agents are quite diverse. There are very few cases in which only one type of thickening agent is used, and normally, a mixture of these types of thickening agents is used.
As described above, although the thickening agent itself used in printing of textiles is required to have permeability, washability, viscosity stability and coating strength during drying, as well as demonstrating adequate dyeing properties, clarity, dyeing uniformity and sharpness on the dyed material, the present state of this thickening agent is such that it is not always able to satisfy all of these requirements.
In addition, in finishing performed within a pad and padding dyeing as well, in addition to suitable dyeing properties, processing uniformity and dyeing uniformity, this thickening agent is required to have suitable viscosity as well as dispersibility for a dye and assistant. In particular, in the case of performing finishing within a pad, the thickening agent of the prior art has the problem of causing migration of dye and processing reagents in the drying process.